The present invention relates generally to computers and computer software, and more specifically, to a method and system for provisioning electronic field guides.
Over the last two decades there has been a dramatic increase in the public's awareness of their natural environment. This has resulted in public pressure to reduce pollution and waste, and has also resulted in an increase in outdoor recreation. Eco-tourism, hiking and birdwatching, for example, are now widespread. In fact, studies have shown that 54 million Americans consider bird watching to be a favoured activity, and that from 1983 to 1996, the number of bird watchers has increased by 155%.
Printed field guides have long been the standard tool for amateur bird watchers, ornithologists and academic researchers alike. A field guide for birdwatching, for example, generally includes photographs of each bird that may be found in a large geographical area (such as North America) with a short textual description on each.
Birds are highly mobile, which makes indexing difficult. Although varieties of birds maybe generally categorized by their environment (swamp, grassland, etc.) or their geographic area, a given bird may visit entirely different areas from time to time, particularly as part of their annual migration routes. As well, two varieties of birds may have overlapping but otherwise completely different coverage profiles. Thus, an indexing system must account for particular birds appearing in multiple and different areas. Such an extensive cross-indexing system is not easily implemented in a printed form, so bird watchers are usually forced to flip through their entire guide or guides to identify a certain bird they have found.
In addition to this lack of an effective index, of course, printed publications are static and cannot be readily updated, and cannot offer audio media (such as playing a bird's songs or calls).
With the recent proliferation of personal computers, pervasive communication networks like the Internet, and high-density, low-cost storage capacity in the form of optical compact disks (CD-roms), it is no surprise that many of these printed field guides have evolved to an electronic form. However, these products have not improved much from the printed form—they still offer the simple presentation of photographs and basic text, using a weak indexing system. As well, of course, personal computers are not mobile, so these new tools cannot be used in the field.
Several other electronic bird-watching products have appeared on the market recently though. The identiflyer™, for example, is a dedicated and portable electronic device into which pre-programmed cards are inserted (see www.identiflyer.com). Although this device plays the song of an identified bird, it has many limitations, including the following:    1. each pre-programmed card can only support ten images and songs. If additional birds are desired, then additional cards must be purchased. In order to have a reasonable database of 160 birds for example, the end user would have to fumble through 16 sound cards to find the card he/she desires and check the song against that of the bird he/she is hearing. Clearly, this would be a clumsy and time consuming exercise to perform while out in the field;    2. there is no indexing system;    3. the printed images of the birds are very small;    4. there is no room on the cards to present any data on the birds themselves; and    5. it has no capacity to record sightings or other data.
A number of other devices have also appeared on the market, which take advantage of personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as the PalmPilot™, PocketPC™, Handspring™ Visor™, Palmcorder™, or Compaq™ Aero™, and similar hand-held electronic or wireless telephone products. PDAs are hand-held devices which offer functionality similar to personal computers, but with much more restricted resources, for example, their display screens are smaller and have less resolution, they have limited memory capacity, and their input interfaces are generally limited. However, because of their flexibility and portability, they hold promise for implementing electronic field guides.
In fact, several attempts have been made to offer PDA-based electronic field guides, including the following:    1. the Pocket Bird Recorder™ which provides a listing of birds and allows the end user to enter sighting data and later upload it to their personal computer. This device does not, however, play the bird's songs, or present any images;    2. the Avisys™ database, which, like the Pocket Bird Recorder, provides a listing of birds and allows the end user to enter sighting data and upload it to their personal computer later. Like the Pocket Bird Recorder, this device does not play bird's songs nor present any images; and    3. the Birdbrain™, which allows the end user to record the sounds of birds, and to make notes (see http://et.sdsu.edu/SDemesceno/BB_busplan/). Like the other Palm-based offers, this device does not present images or pre-recorded bird's songs.Thus, none of these devices offer a powerful and effective tool for implementing an electronic field guide.
If the above problems could be overcome, electronic field guides could be provided for a large number of applications including plant life, animals, reptiles, insects, marine life, and rocks and minerals. Electronic field guides could also be tailored to particular eco-tours or particular geographic areas such as national parks, mountain ranges, tourist areas or particular islands.
There is therefore a need for a method and system of electronic field guides provided with consideration for the problems outlined above.